The Lean Startup Advantage: Less Costs More Profit

Once I was talking to a good friend of mine named Tony about launching his own business. He was trying to launch an online education website. I was suggesting him to start with an MVP and use the lean startup advantage that makes the progress according to costumers feedbacks. But he was completely against me! He thought that if he starts whit an MVP he would miss many of his potential costumers because of not having a perfect product.

So I decided to write about this topic and put it through the lights.

As you can see in this article I’m going to discuss these questions that may come to your mind in lean startup methodology: “Does MVP make me look weak?” or “Will I lose some potential costumers because of my MVP (which is not the ideal)?” Let Tony do what he thinks is the best way.

Tony, you go ahead

Well, I asked Tony to write his steps through starting this business. So I will copy and paste his way below

“I’m going to study and scrutinize my costumes so I can know what they want and what the like. I’m going to design the best website base on their desires by hiring the best designer I can afford. I will release my online education site and it will be stunning and successful for sure because it was designed the best way possible. The most important thing is that I won’t lose any potential customer because I’m offering the best product that I can produce form the first day”

Tony’s problem with MVP

Obviously Tony thinks that not having the best product to start means failure because he thinks that he might lose some potential costumers while they are using his MVP.

let me know what you think about his opinion in the comments so we can discuss farther in the subject together.

As a matter of fact, Tony is right! But wait a minute, does it mean that all we know about the lean startup is nothing but a non-sense methodology and there is no meaning in the lean startup advantage? Of course not! let’s do some simple math to find the answer.

Finally, The Answer is in The Lean Startup Advantage

You Almost Never Know if Users Will Like Your Product or not

Trust me when I say users are unpredictable! You have to be flexible and ready to change your product based on user feedback. That’s the only way you can make sure that your company survives.

For example let’s say users are looking for an online education website that has online text-based courses, webinars, and podcasts. In the other hand after market investigation, Tony somehow finds out that users need video courses, slides, and online qualification exams. Also, let’s consider a 100$ cost per feature to apply. What do you think will happen?

Well, Tony will spend 300$ and release his website for public usage after he is done with what he thinks is the best (which he is mistaking obviously). In the other hand, users will face something completely different from what they really want and all of the users will bounce. So he finds that he was mistaking with time and money that is for applying video courses, slides and online qualification exams features in his website.

But if he was using lean startup methodology, he makes his MVP with the boldest feature in his opinion and puts it through a test by making it public. He would have fewer users in this case but he could see that it’s not working instantly so he changes it as soon as possible. This means less time and money costs and more likely to succeed.

As you can see with the lean startup you are safe and always answering to users desires.

The most Valuable Lean Startup Advantage

When you wait for the best possible product to offer the public you will lose time and money and maybe even the whole market! Don’t even think about your MVP will affect your customers’ minds that you are weak or some stupid thing like that. You are making an MVP to actually test your product and that’s the most brilliant thing you can do in nowadays business market. Let me say that one more time, USERS ARE UNPREDICTABLE! That’s why the concept of the lean startup is created and that’s the most important thing you might want to remember from this article.

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